Today, Saturday, October 26, doctors and citizens are participating in a "mass convention" to discuss urgent issues and determine a plan for their protest regarding the rape and murder of a fellow postgraduate medical student at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.
"We have fought, we are still fighting, and we will fight against this together...," member of the West Bengal Junior Doctors Front (WBJDF) Dr Debashis Halder can be heard addressing the crowd in the video snippets uploaded by Dr Abhinaba Pal on social media platform X.
A fight that includes all
Dr Halder, continuing his speech, says that this fight does not include the junior doctors alone, but the seniors and the common citizens as well.
Expressing that the struggle extends beyond RG Kar, the doctor urged that the movement should expand to every campus to confront and reduce the pervasive threat culture present in these institutions.
"We have to build the momentum for the fight so that this toxic threat culture cannot raise its head ever again. We have to make sure of it since we have started a movement here," said the speaker.
Not another Abhaya
Highlighting the goal of the movement, he added, "Our main aim should be that there should not be another Abhaya."
Expressing their disappointment with their meeting with Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Monday, October 21, the speaker shared that the arrest of former RG Kar principal Dr Sandip Ghosh, and his aides, with the CM taking their sides is a cause of shame and utter embarrassment.
With the incident, the speaker added, "the pest-infested health system" has come to light, and democratically as well as judiciously, everyone needs to keep fighting against this system.
The agitating doctors have recently called off their hunger strike after a meeting with the CM, which the protesting junior doctors allege bore no substantial results.
